The World in Which We Occur
Subtitle: John Dewey, Pragmatist Ecology, and American Ecological Writing in the Twentieth Century
Edition: 1 edition
Publisher: University Alabama Press; University of Alabama Press
Published: October 7, 2007
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 256
ISBN-13: 9780817315818
Subjects: Literary studies: from c 1900 -; The Environment; Literary Criticism; Literature - Classics / Criticism; USA; American - General; Environmental Science; Science / Environmental Science; Human ecology; Human ecology in literature; Philosophy
Description: "American philosopher John Dewey considered all human endeavors to be one with the natural world. In his writings, particularly Art as Experience (1934), Dewey insists on the primacy of the environment in aesthetic experience. Dewey's conception of environment includes both the natural and the man-made. The World in Which We Occur highlights this notion in order to define "pragmatist ecology," a practice rooted in the interface of the cultural and the natural. Neil Browne finds this to be a significant feature of some of the most important ecological writing of the last century." "To fully understand human involvement in the natural world, Browne argues that disciplinary boundaries must be opened, with profound implications for the practice of democracy. The degradation of the physical environment and democratic decay, for Browne, are rooted in the same problem: our persistent belief that humans are somehow separate from their physical environment. Browne probes the work of a number of major American writers through the lens of Dewey's philosophy."--BOOK JACKET.